The Regional City: Planning for the End of Sprawl

By Peter Calthorpe and William Fulton Island Press, California, 2001. 302 pp., Hardcover: $55.00; Paperback: $35.00 At the opening of The Regional City, a group of Salt Lake City civic leaders sit down to figure out how best to accommodate the next million people in the region. Armed with small squares of paper each representing four square miles of typical suburban growth, they begin to arrange the squares on a map of the region. When laid out next to each other in conventional suburban fashion, the squares soon cover the area’s remaining agricultural land and mountain plateaus. Realizing the need for a new approach, the civic leaders begin to stack the squares of paper on top of each other and place them in low-density urban areas in need of renewal. The scene is a compelling illustration of the need for a new paradigm in planning and the importance of regarding growth patterns from a bird’s-eye perspective. Architect Peter Calthorpe and author/planner William Fulton go on to show us just how complex it will be make our cities more livable, but manage to leave the reader hopeful that it can be done. The Regional City is not a book that cuts corners or churns out catchy slogans. It is written for a professional audience and will stand up to repeated readings. Thoroughly, and with careful reasoning, Calthorpe and Fulton call for a holistic style of planning — one that links the physical form of development with social equity and the economic and environmental viability of our communities. This is a tall order, but The Regional City supplies both theory and practical solutions on the design and policy level. Calthorpe and Fulton’s central premise is that the development patterns that have brought us sprawl are now fundamentally out of step with the realities of contemporary American life. Most people no longer live in discrete cities or towns; they are citizens of metropolitan regions governed by numerous local jurisdictions. These regional cities are networks of open space, economies, and neighborhoods. The competitive and often adversarial relationship between central cities and edge cities that exists today is no longer sustainable. Calthorpe and Fulton argue that the suburban middle class and the inner-city underclass increasingly share common problems: decaying neighborhoods, clogged and inefficient transportation systems, and poor education. “This is the real power of the Regional City: it can unify now disconnected interest groups by addressing their problems with shared strategies,” the authors write. Calthorpe’s previous book, The Next American Metropolis, featured a richly illustrated set of detailed guidelines for neighborhood and transit-oriented design. Physical design issues are by no means neglected in The Regional City, but are discussed more generally as the underpinning framework for a healthy region. The principles set forth by Calthorpe and Fulton will be familiar territory to most new urbanist professionals. On a regional scale, the walkable neighborhood remains the most basic building block for growth Social and Economic Policy solutions The authors’ willingness to move beyond physical form and enter into a comprehensive discussion of the public policies needed to approach a greater degree of social and economic equity sets the book apart from its predecessors in the new urbanist canon. Calthorpe and Fulton maintain that physical design policies such as urban growth boundaries and coordinated land-use/transportation planning have to be combined with policies on fair share housing, regional tax-base sharing, and balance in educational choices in order for a regional plan to alleviate inequity. That is, affordable and subsidized housing has to be distributed evenly across the region, an effort that will require commitment from state officials. The authors provide examples from New Jersey, Maryland, and Chicago that suggest a fairer housing market can be achieved without rampant gentrification. As regards taxes, Calthorpe and Fulton propose breaking the cycle of competition for the most lucrative land uses by pooling portions of sales and property taxes and redistributing the money regionally on the basis of population and need. The authors’ support for school vouchers may prove the most controversial aspect of their vision. However, the system they advocate would target specific, needy urban areas, rather than parents at certain income levels. Regional models The latter part of The Regional City is devoted to a detailed look at metropolitan areas that have begun comprehensive regional planning, state smart growth programs as well as descriptions of projects and plans by Calthorpe Associates. The discussions of the planning processes in Portland, Oregon, Seattle, and Salt Lake City provide a valuable insider’s view of these pioneering efforts. If you only know the condensed version of what has happened in Portland, The Regional City is where you need to turn. Ironically, these case studies can get so bogged down with details that it is easy to loose sight of the big picture. As such, they mirror what happens in the public planning process. The book is at its best when it shows us the big picture. As Calthorpe and Fulton write: “When average citizens are allowed to understand the aggregate effects of differing forms of development, they have a dramatically different reaction to the politics of growth than when confronting it project by project.”